Clive Tyldesley interview: I lost mum and my ITV gig but am eager to fight on

Clive Tyldesley was grieving an abrupt end to his ITV career at Euro 2024 when he suffered an even ­crueller blow. “I actually lost my mum the first week of the tournament,” he says, in his first major interview since his final game for the broadcaster. “I had to fly back for a couple of days and look after that, then come back.”

Tyldesley has now returned home from Germany for good after the channel he served for so long as the voice of its football coverage decided not to renew his contract and, he says, brought forward his hoped-for farewell by a week.

Coupled with the loss of the mother he credits with taking him to his first football match – thereby laying the foundations for a life commentating on the game – it is not surprising he is still coming to terms with it all.

“Whilst there is a kind of delayed sense of shock at the passing of a parent, she passed peacefully and probably very much at a time of her calling in many respects,” Tyldesley says. “It’s been a reflective time one way or another, personally and professionally. Because 28 years is a long time with one company.

“And I hope I’ve made it clear that most of those 28 years have been wonderful for me and I owe ITV a huge amount for the opportunity they gave me when the late, great Brian Moore retired. And it’s been quite a ride one way or another, through ­Champions League finals and major tournaments with England, and some soaring audiences and ­indelible memories.

“So, it’s been a strange, rather than difficult trip. And the kind of headline events which have been my final game and saying goodbye to Mum have actually produced a lot of mellow reflections rather than any extreme emotions.”

In some ways, the loss of his mother has been easier for Tyldesley to accept than that of his job. “My mum’s situation had deteriorated over the last couple of months to the point where, at 95, she stopped getting a great deal of joy from life,” he says of the woman who inspired his love of the game.

The slow end to his ITV career began in 2020 when he was axed as lead commentator in favour of Sam Matterface, his junior by more than 20 years, which Tyldesley said had left him “upset, annoyed and ­baffled” in a searing video address posted to social media.

He was “bitterly disappointed” again upon being further demoted to third choice for the last World Cup, when he was denied a live quarter-final and returned home after refusing to provide highlights commentary.

‘I was being moved aside and sent home’

He says he was also told before the Euros that his services would not be required beyond the round of 16. But he still arrived in Germany ­hoping to do enough to convince ITV bosses to change their minds.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to motivate yourself to go to a tournament as a player would do,” he says. “I drew the analogy with the [Cole] Palmers and [Anthony] Gordons and whoever: ‘I’ll perform to a level to make you think again.’ But either I haven’t been able to reach that level or the decision was final.”

He also wanted no part in any tribute ITV planned to pay to him after his last game; Germany’s ­dramatic win over Denmark.

“I didn’t think it was necessary because I wasn’t retiring. I was being moved aside and sent home. It wasn’t my decision, it was theirs. And I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to react to any kind of compliments in those circumstances. It’s a pretty veiled compliment when somebody puts a showreel together and then says, ‘Thank you very much, indeed. We’re keeping the other three commentators but you’re going home’, and had said that six weeks earlier.”

He adds: “But, I stress, there’s no need for violin music. It’s not a national tragedy. There are bigger things happening in this country on Thursday [the general election] than me effectively losing a job.”

That has not prevented an outpouring of anger over Tyldesley’s axing and a flood of “lovely messages” he says “make you feel a lot better than I really am”. It was the same four years ago when among those who contacted him was comedian and presenter Dara O’Briain, who he says wrote in a message: “You are one of the few people who’s had the pleasure of reading their obituaries without actually dying.”

Tyldesley adds: “It has felt a little bit like that in the last couple of days. And when you’re still healthy and breathing and happy and loved, reading your obituaries is quite a fun thing to do.”

‘I still think I’m performing at a high level... I feel no little annoyance’

He says he still does not know “the full reasons to this day” behind his axing as ITV’s lead commentator. “In the course of a fairly caustic conversation on the telephone with the person who’d taken the decision, I think he said something about, ‘We need to refresh’. I hope that is something I try to do on a game-by-game basis.

“If there is an underlying sense that, ‘He’s had a good innings and it’s time for somebody else’, then I’ve got to accept that. If the decisions that are taken are a judgment on the fact that I’m no longer as good as some of the alternatives, then I would dispute that. And that’s not a question of arrogance and vanity on my part.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who’s a bigger critic of Clive Tyldesley than Clive Tyldesley himself. I still think that I’m performing at a reasonably high level. And, in that respect, I feel some deep disappointment and no little annoyance.”

He cannot be sure if his age, 69, played a part in his axing or in the thanks-but-no-thanks responses he says he got from Sky and TNT Sports when he spoke to them about joining their commentary teams.

“My attitudes, I don’t think, are that of an old person,” he says. “Because my wife and I have four big things that we loosely call ­children aged between their late twenties and early thirties and they’re amongst our best friends.

“They will be the first to tell me if, ‘Dad’s sounding like an old fart’. And I don’t think that I do.”

He adds: “I think there is a notion in certain areas that you need a 35-year-old to communicate with 35-year-olds, or a 20-year-old to communicate with 20-year-olds. I dispute that, strongly.

“There are many people of my generation that don’t think anything’s any good any more, believe that all music made since 1980 is rubbish, every movie made since 1980 is trash, and so on. I’m not one of those people.”

He says he would “dearly love” to still be covering England matches, a feeling he admits was particularly acute when Jude Bellingham’s last-gasp overhead kick against Slovakia rescued them from one of their worst defeats.

“As I was sat here watching, I – as people do in 2024 – reached for my phone and immediately tweeted, ‘Football, b----- hell’. Whether I’d have been brave enough to say it… but that probably would’ve been the dream commentary line to add.”

Citing his own podcast, The Football Authorities, in which he stars alongside former player and manager Martin O’Neill, he continues: “I whimsically suggest that commentators should be allowed one F-word per season, because, sometimes, it’s the only word that will do. Maybe that would’ve been a great way to go out! Run out of football for swearing on air.”

Bellingham’s goal brought back memories of Manchester United’s Champions League triumph in 1999, the defining moment of Tyldesley’s commentary career.

“That’s the opportunity that doing those games provide you. There is also a wonderful sense of opportunity for a broadcaster that can find the right words for the right moment. The greats of your and my lifetime have all got those moments. The Motsons and the Davieses and the Moores and the Tylers have all got those moments that will be forever associated with them.”

That Tyldesley is regularly mentioned in the same breath as that quartet in any top-10 list of English football’s greatest commentators says everything about the esteem in which he is held, although he jokes: “I’ll be on a few top 10 a---holes, too, don’t you worry. That’s the nature of the beast.”

But how will the man who still has three years of a four-year ­contract to cover the Champions League for American giant CBS know when the time is right to hang up his own mic?

“I just hope I’ll know. I have a seen enough great broadcasters drop below the levels of excellence that have made them special to ­people they’ll never meet, without recognising it themselves. I hope I’ve got people around me who will tell me when they think I’m slipping. I hope I’ll recognise it myself.”

If the reaction to his ITV exit is anything to go by, particularly from those mourning the end of his partnership at the Euros with co-commentator Ally McCoist, that day is still some way off.

“If I’ve got a gripe at the end of this, it is that I think there’s a lot of evidence in the last two days that Clive Tyldesley and Ally McCoist – two guys, one nearly 60, one nearly 70 – can still serve today’s mass audience of all ages, all genders, all creeds and colours,” he says.

“And I can’t quite fathom out why a broadcaster wouldn’t want to utilise that asset when there is so much love for it out there as there is at the moment.

“Here endeth the lesson.”